UPDATE 1-UK Stocks-Factors to watch on Dec 17

Dec 17 (Reuters) - Britain’s FTSE 100 futures was up 0.13 percent ahead of the cash market open on Monday.

* ASOS: British online fashion retailer ASOS lowered its annual margin and sales growth forecast on Monday after November trade fell short of expectations.

* SSE: British energy supplier SSE Plc said on Monday it would not proceed with a tie-up with Innogy SE IGY.DE that would have created the UK’s No. 2 retail power provider, saying the deal was not in the best interests of its shareholders or customers.

* SAFESTYLE UK: Safestyle UK Plc on Monday forecast a bigger loss for the year, as the British windows and doors retailer spends heavily to hire contract workers.

* HUNTING: Oilfield services company Hunting Plc said on Monday it expects oil and gas explorers to defer some projects as a recent fall in crude prices is expected to hit their budgets in the short term.

* BP: BP in Trinidad and Tobago (bptt) gave the go-ahead to two new gas developments, Cassia compression and Matapal, offshore Trinidad, it said on Friday.

* MEARS GROUP: Activist investor Shareholder Value Management has called on Mears Group to move swiftly to appoint a new chairman or it will call a fresh extraordinary general meeting, a letter to the company seen by Reuters showed.

* SAINSBURY: A British court ruled on Friday that the country’s competition regulator treated Sainsbury’s and takeover target Asda unfairly in not allowing the supermarket groups more time to respond to evidence submitted as part of a probe of their deal.

* GLENCORE: A Glencore PLC-controlled mining company and some of its current and former executives have agreed to pay more than $22 million to settle Canadian allegations they hid the risks of doing business with an Israeli man close to Congolese President Joseph Kabila, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

* GOLD: Gold prices inched down on Monday ahead of a U.S. Federal Reserve meeting this week, pressured by a robust dollar as investors outside the United States sought the safety of the greenback amid global growth concerns.

* OIL: Oil prices were largely steady on Monday after falling 2 percent in the previous session, but remained under pressure amid weaker growth in major economies and concerns about oversupply.

* The UK blue chip index closed down 0.7 percent at 6845.17 on Friday, energy stocks and Astrazeneca gained after SunTrust gave it a “buy” rating.

* For more on the factors affecting European stocks, please click on: cpurl://apps.cp./cms/?pageId=livemarkets

TODAY’S UK PAPERS

> Financial Times

> Other business headlines (Reporting by Samantha Machado and Siju Varghese in Bengaluru)